Microsoft Windows OS (XP/NT/Vista/Windows 7/8/9/10) Forum

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut prices of its Windows Vista operating system sold at retail outlets in a move aimed at pushing customers to switch to the newest version of Windows.

The world's largest software maker said it plans to lower retail prices for Vista in 70 countries later this year in tandem with the shipment of the first major update to Vista, known as Service Pack 1 (SP1).

I have several friends who are working pretty much 24/7 at the moment doing hardware refreshes for companies that are replacing machines like mad at the moment while they can still get legitimate XP licenses.

Who is actually buying at retail prices? Vast majority of people get new OS when they buy new computers and there OEM pricing applies. It's not like Windows 95 days when people were actually queueing up to get it - maybe Microsoft needs to give away free Vista to be virtualised along main XP installment and _if_ it works great people will make it primary OS.

Vista's costs are not the price you pay to MSFT, it's the price you pay for allowing the DRM on your machine, for allowing MSFT to issue killbits for hardware and drivers potentially crippling equipment you own.

The price to maintain it all in a "working" order, the loss of productivity to figure out what error "-32" might mean and how to work around that.

Basically the TCO (total ost of ownership) needs to be looked at, not retail prices, they are in fact insignificant compared to the rest.

I hope SP1 can fix some of the absolutely ridiculous things that go on in Vista. For instance, I'm SO sick of being asked at least 2 times if I really want to delete something. YES I'M SURE I WANT TO DO THAT! I think Microsoft got their user focus group from a list of AOL users.

I always think of the Apple ad with the PC and the secret service guy: SSG: "You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?" PC: "<sigh> Allow..."

Back on topic... if I had a choice between a $300 copy of XP and $100 copy of Vista I would still buy XP.

After posting a "Vista: Get Ready for Pain" thread when I first encountered the monster, I've changed my tune.

As an individual, not someone who has to maintain corporate system, I think if you work with Vista for a couple of months, you will choose it as your primary MS OS. I have Vista on one machine, XP on another now that I inherited a new laptop. The main difference on the machines is memory - 2GB on Vista and 1GB on XP, but I'll be changing that because XP machine is slow.

Previously I had Win2K on one machine and XP on my wife's laptop, which I was using quite a bit. I never once felt a desire or need to upgrade to XP and in general just always preferred Win2K, but mostly didn't see any meaningful difference between the two. With Adobe CS3, 2K was no longer supported and I had to choose and, because of pricing alone, went with Vista (which for various reasons was a *lot* cheaper for me).

My curve with Vista was like this - day 1: desire to shoot myself - week 1: desire to shoot Bill Gates - week 2: desire to shoot my computer - week 3+: "how the hell do I..." frustration at stupid new interface. - month 1: grudging accomodation, finding some things I like - month 2+ invisibility - the new interface is my default. It's okay. - month 4+: now finding myself splitting time between machines and working on an XP box again after several months of Vista-only, when I'm on the XP box, wishing it had Vista.

Just the start box application launcher saves me time during the day and now navigating through my start menu to find applications has become incredibly annoying. Launchy helps, but it just isn't as nice as the Vista system for me. And I like the look and feel and some other minor usability improvements. I didn't really notice them, but now increasingly I find myself flummoxed when I'm on XP.

What I dislike - can't run multiple IEs without virtualization - a few install issues that I had to work around

Still, my experience with how seemingly tiny interface improvements make you see how annoying the old system is makes me not so much a fan of Vista, but thinking that I was wrong to discount the differences between Windows and Mac. It's easier for me to see how those small refinements really add up during a long day in front of the computer. If I didn't own any software at all, I would probably go for a Mac at this point, but not wanting to buy Mac versions of everything, I'm stuck with MS for now and Vista is, FOR ME, the lesser of three evils.

Put it this way,if I were shopping for a Windows computer and had to decide between two computers, both easily Vista-ready, one having XP and one having Home Premium, I would choose the latter, but wouldn't pay more than a few dollars for it. I would however not pass up a good deal just because of Vista.

I agree ergophobe that there are some useful features with Vista - they have to get something right after all - the reason I will never buy it however is DRM, I object to it continually phoning home every time I want to play a video.

There is that... Personally, Win2K was probably the best overall OS that I've seen from Microsoft. It was rock solid for years and years for me and I was loathe to give it up. The down side of Vista is definitely the wheel that spins and spins and spins. Do I CTRL-ALT-DEL or just let is spin?

For all I said about the nice interface for Vista, if I could run my Adobe stuff on Win2K, I'd still be there. The OS didn't seize and my apps didn't seize. Ever. Can't say the same for XP or Vista.

Last year I bought a new computer with Vista pre-loaded. The first thing I did was install XP on it.

I was planning to do the same with a new laptop I bought last month but stopped because the laptop manufacturer's support website only had downloads for Vista drivers. There were no XP drivers so I was stuck with Vista.

Having lived with Vista for 2 weeks (but with Aero etc. OFF), I must say that I have been converted. It is simply easier to use... or I am getting older :-~

The slow file operation issue has been sorted (for me) by letting the computer install all the updates it wanted. MS will be including a fix in SP1, but apparantly SP1 is just a roll-up of all the existing fixes which you can download.

Still run it on my main machine. Has been up now for 243 days and counting.

That said, I bought a new laptop with Vista Home Premium last summer and have not found too many problems except the if you did this click the continue button to continue doing what you said you wanted to do in the first place annoyances. Still has a few problems with some drivers, manufacturers appear not to have been able to get them out the door as quickly compared to other releases.

apparantly SP1 is just a roll-up of all the existing fixes which you can download.

That's not entirely true. According to this Vista SP1 FAQ [technet.microsoft.com]:

In addition to previously released updates, SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards.

BTW, I found that most of my initial problems with Vista were related to just a couple of applications. For example, Windows Explorer (file browser not internet browser) was crashing constantly. That turned out to be ZipGenius shell integration that was causing it. I switched to IZarc and those problems disappeared. They were, however, seemingly ubiquitous because you're using Windows Explorer so much and it wasn't until I noticed that it didn't crash if there weren't any zipped archives in the directory.

It does strike me, though, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the architecture if a third-party application can hook in in such a way that it can reliably and 100% of the time crash such a low-level utility and I do blame that on Vista.

Next time you're near an apple store, go in and try one of the machines for half an hour, seriously. The staff won't kick you out, and at worst they'll give you some tips. After an hour of using the completely alien interface you'll have that level of "okay". Just imagine what it will be like 2+ months later.

All you need is being open to change.

And I'm sure you'll not get suicidal, nor murderous over buying that new machine again. That's until somebody makes you go back to (any version of) windows.

Has been up now for 243 days and counting.

I'm sure the bad guys out there will love you for not patching your vulnerable PC so they can enlist it in their botnet.

Eye candy is all just fine and well I guess, but we needed an OS that our "3rd" party software can write to.

Bought several new notepads summer last year and without even really thinking, had Vista installed on them all, and now, as of January, they are all sporting XP. Our stand-ups never got Vista, and thank the OS gods for that.

I don't blame Windows for lowering the price. If I had a crap OS, I'd lower the price too.

Windows 98 and Windows XP were the only true benchmarks for Microsoft in my opinion. (though I do give 95 a "little credit" over 3x too)

I dual-boot XP and Vista (because I have to test with both). The simple reality is that Microsoft opted for revolution instead of evolution. Almost none of the changes could actually be described as improvements. Performance in particular has been hit very badly - this tells us two things...

They don't care about performance - the hardware companies will just have to "catch up".

Vista is neither needed nor wanted by the public at large so it is hardly surprising that retail prices have been cut. Microsoft should have simply released XP++ with aero and UAC as options. It would have been a lot less hassle for everyone. Of course, it would not have resulted in a retail bonanza built on exploitation of the foolish and the over-eager.